Wind-blown Color

I was sitting down by the elementary school yesterday afternoon, taking some pictures. The leaves on the tree over my head were orange, yellow, and almost-green. The leaves under my feet were mostly orange and crunchy.

When the breeze blew, the leaves on the ground would rustle and move a little. Leaves fell from the tree over my head, swirling around me. And the leaves on the pavement in front of me scuttled and rattled across the black top as the wind blew them in every different direction.

The wind hummed low in my ears, and caused the leaves all around me to rattle and hiss. They sounded like a rain stick.

The time I spent under that tree brought me back home in a way. The foliage at home far outshines the colors here. Here, most of the time we just go from green to brown. Not much orange or red in between. But under this tree, it was orange. It was a taste of what I've been missing.

When I caught the leaves in my camera, the colors that I saw just popped. The oranges were brighter, and reds were redder, the yellows were sunnier. Everything just seemed to glow through my lens, making me feel almost as if I'd stepped out of my world and into one of much more color.

The breeze that swirled around me must have carried me off somewhere with color and sun.

And then I noticed the trunk of the tree I was leaning on. It was actually pretty ugly, knotted and gnarly with lichen growing haphazardly here and there in ugly white spots. There was nothing especially spectacular about the trunk. Until I noticed something move.

A bright red lady bug was making his or her way up the trunk on the most ugly side of the tree. The stark contrast between the rough and grey bark and this smooth red bug was beautiful. That bug just crawled over whatever bumps or crevasses he came to. He didn't let anything stop his ascent. When the breeze blew too hard against him, he just hunkered down and clung with all his might to the bark.

More color in a drab situation. More color. Maybe that is what I need. More color.

See A Developing Story for a picture picture.